Out of this city marched armies that seemed to be great, and afterwards were when glory had magnified them. As the years went by, an occasional soldier returned, and with a foreign trace to his speech, told tales of what had happened to him in places...
For the first time in his life, Michael understood why real soldiers coming back from real wars often had a hard time getting over the things they'd seen and done. And had done to them. If Michael had a soul, it was starting to leak out of his hopes.
It's a thin line between what we're calling acceptable and not acceptable. As a leader, you're supposed to know when not to cross it. But how do you know? Does the army teach us how to control our emotions? Does the army teach us how to deal with a f...
I knew right then and there that I would become as courageous as I needed in order to keep him safe. I thought of the soldiers and bullets that I hid from in Asmara. I would stand and fight them to keep Fili safe.
Just because you disagreed with the Poll Tax and detested Margaret Thatcher—" "Detest is a little inappropriate," Parlabane said. "Maybe closer to say I spent the entire Eighties wishing I was pissing on her rotting corpse.
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring ...
My mother used to say that rain here pours like a blessing, like a thick veil that parts to reveal the bride's face. But nearly every day, when this rain parted, it revealed a long line of soldiers, like you, like death, marching toward us, and we wo...
He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon, and that is all. [...] Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love [...] and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows ...
Someone broke from the scrum and, punching and kicking, staggered towards the Klatchian goal. "Isn't that man your butler?" said Ahmed. "Yes." "One of your soldiers said he bit a man's nose off." Vimes shrugged. "He's got a very pointed look if I don...
A man of God has many brothers. He is a wounded soldier - he is familiar with the pain one feels in his heart, as a close and loving brother, when a brother falls victim of evil men or turns to evil desires (the latter sometimes even betrayal). Becau...
Sometime [Queen Mab] driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus fri...
Indeed, grief is not the clear melancholy the young believe it. It is like a siege in a tropical city. The skin dries and the throat parches as though one were living in the heat of the desert; water and wine taste warm in the mouth, and food is of t...
There were books everywhere. Hundreds of books. Thousands of books. There were books of every size, shape, and color. They lined the walls from floor to ceiling, standing straight and rigid as soldiers on the polished mahogany shelves, the gilt lette...
In each succeeding war there is a tendency to proclaim as something new the principles under which it is conducted. Not only those who have never studied or experienced the realities of war, but also professional soldiers frequently fall into the err...
I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.
It’s important to have a buddy like that. Somebody who’ll stop you from doing that really stupid thing you were gonna do just because you couldn’t think of anything better. -- unidentified soldier, eulogizing his dead buddy
No wizard has ever made himself useful by magic, or, if they've tried, they've only made matters worse. No wizard ever stopped a war or mended a fence. It's better that they stay in their marshes, out of the way of worldly folk like farmers and soldi...
Being sick is itself a kind of ressentiment. — Against this the invalid has only one great means of cure — I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism without rebellion with which a Russian soldier for whom the campaign has become too much at last ...
I'll get it if you need it, I'll search if you don't see it, You're thirsty, I'll be rain, You get hurt, I'll take your pain. I know you don't believe it, But I said it and I still mean it, When you heard what I told you, When you get worried I'll be...
When I visited Syrian special forces along the front lines, I was given extraordinary amounts of detail. They gave me the code numbers for the various positions they've got, told me where the rebels were - about 800 meters away in a forest. I met sol...
Masculinity is simply a conglomeration of the personality traits necessary for the patriarchal soldier-rapist: physically strong, emotionally cauterized, rational, domineering, cruel. All of this is supposed to add up to "handsome" as well. Likewise ...
